The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may or may not constitute prior art.
Many types of sensors are commonly employed in motor vehicles. For example, in many motor vehicle transmissions, clutch position sensors are used to determine the clutch position by reading the gauss field from a piston magnet. Further, a fork position sensor reads the gauss field radiated from a fork magnet to determine the gear state of the clutch. The magnets associated with the fork position sensor, however, typically interfere with the signals read by the clutch position sensor. To reduce this interference, shields for the fork magnet have been employed, but these shields have not proven to be very effective. In other arrangements, the size of the magnets for the clutch position sensor has been increased, or the distance between the fork magnet and the clutch position sensor magnet has been increased. These arrangements, however, introduce significant redesign and packaging issues.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an optimized magnetic linear position sensor with minimal magnetic mass that produces minimal magnetic interference to the surrounding environment.